


For Want of a Moneypenny

by Castillon02



Series: Bond Women Loving Women [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Lipstick & Lip Gloss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 19:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7654297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moneypenny changes the course of events on Silva’s island. Séverine lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want of a Moneypenny

**Author's Note:**

> For the Moneypenny/Séverine spot on the 007 fest femslash prompt card.

Bond’s bullet ricochets off the rock behind Séverine. The shot of whiskey on Séverine’s head trembles but does not fall. Eve’s gut tightens. She’d followed the _Chimera_ , evaded the paltry number of guards roaming the island, and now she’s perched with her rifle in the second-story window of a building just outside Silva’s headquarters. She has a bead on Silva. He’s drawing his gun. **  
**

Where is the damn back-up helicopter?

Silva raises his arm.

Eve’s finger tightens on the trigger. 

They need to recover the list, but there’s no way to know if Silva would give it to them if he lived. They need to recover the list, but surely Q can find it in Silva’s hide-out. They need to recover the list, but a woman is about to die.

There’s no voice in her ear this time. Eve pulls the trigger anyway.

Silva’s shot goes wide. He spins towards her, blood blooming across his dark vest and spattering his cream-colored jacket. 

Bond starts dispatching the armed guards around him.

Silva drops to his knees, the gun in his hands.

Eve sees the helicopter in the distance, finally. She slides the rifle into the holster on her shoulder, runs downstairs, and strides into the kill zone just in time to see Séverine pick up the shot glass from the ground where Bond must have set it before he freed her. 

Séverine hurls the glass and it shatters on Silva’s face. The scent of whiskey fills the air.

Silva cries out and bares his teeth at Séverine, blinking his eyes against the glass shards, but he seems to be too busy panting in agony and trying to stop the blood from leaving his body to offer a rejoinder. He’s holding his wadded-up jacket on the wound like a compress, but Eve’s bullet hadn’t been small-calibre. She’s not sure he’ll live, and she’s not sure if she’s sorry.

“Waste of good scotch,” Bond comments, busy tying Silva’s legs with the rope he’d cut free from Séverine. When he’s done with that, he motions for Eve to take over putting pressure on the wound while he ties Silva’s wrists. Once Silva’s secure, Bond waves her away and steps on the folded jacket covering Silva’s wound—a fairly effective but also painful way to staunch the blood flow, if Silva’s curses are anything to go by.

Séverine stops glaring at Silva and turns towards her. “And who are you?” she asks. “I do love a woman who can aim.” Her glance at Bond is snide. Her look at Eve…well, that’s an intrigued smile if Eve ever saw one. An intriguing smile, too.

“My name is Eve,” Eve says, holding out her hand.

Séverine shakes it, holding Eve’s gaze. “Séverine. It’s very nice to meet you, Eve.”  

“She shot me off a bridge, you know,” Bond says.

“Very nice,” Séverine says again, this time with an appreciative gleam in her eyes.

“Er, thank you,” Eve says. It’s not the usual reaction to being told that she’s shot someone off a bridge, but she guesses she’ll take it.

“Maybe you would like a tour?” Séverine asks, tilting her head to indicate Silva’s lair. “I’m sure you haven’t had a chance to see…everything the island has to offer.”

Is that code for the list? Or innuendo? Both? Or just code for trekking to the facilities to clean herself up, which is what Eve would want to do if she were in Séverine’s shoes?  

“James can stay here,” Séverine adds, giving Bond a dismissive glance that has Eve stifling a smirk.

“Don’t mind me,” Bond says. “I’ll just stand here and wait for the helicopter.” He presses hard on Silva’s wound with his foot and Silva shouts.

“Lead the way, then,” Eve says to Séverine, and follows her into what turns out to be a massive server farm.

The server farm has a toilet without a mirror. Eve uses damp toilet paper to dab away the blood and sweat on Séverine’s face. She thinks, as she has done before, how strange and convenient it would be if their faces could toughen when exposed to hardships like bare feet do when they’re exposed to hard ground. They don’t, of course, so she gives Séverine the emergency lipstick in her pocket. A girl’s got to have her mask.

“Thank you,” Séverine says, her lips trembling for just a moment before she collects herself. “Put it on me?” she asks, offering the lipstick back to Eve.

Her jaw is soft under Eve’s hand, her lips pliant beneath the tip of the applicator as Eve outlines and fills them in.

“Do you want a second coat?” Eve asks. “It lasts longer that way.”

“Please,” Séverine says.

Eve slows her breathing, which had been coming a little fast, and carefully applies a second coat. “There,” she says afterward. “Perfect. That will last through anything life can throw at you.” She gives the lipstick back to Séverine.

Séverine holds it in her hand, not having pockets on her dress. “Let’s go somewhere a little more interesting now,” she says, and her painted lips curve at the ends in a cat-that-got-the-cream smile.

Eve has high hopes that 'somewhere more interesting' is going to be code for 'somewhere that will make your day.' 

***

“You have a little something,” Bond says when she comes back, and taps his cheek. The chopper’s landed nearby, and Silva must be on it, because there’s no sign of him other than the bloodstain on the ground. She sees a few other agents walking in and out of nearby buildings, pistols ready to fire. Checking for other guards, maybe. Or prisoners.

Eve touches the lip-print on her cheek and smiles. “I know,” she says. “I got a kiss from a grateful woman. And something else.” She holds up a hard drive, triumphant. Q Branch will spend days crawling through Silva’s servers, but not because they’re looking for the list. 

“Where is she?” Bond asks, trying and failing to sound casual.  

“She’s slipping into something a little more comfortable,” Eve says.

Bond raises his eyebrows.

Eve lets him wonder. 

(Of course Bond assumes they had sex. Of course he does. As if that's going to be Séverine's first priority right after her lover took a bullet while trying to murder her.)  

A couple of minutes later, Séverine walks out to join them. She’s got trousers on now—with pockets, Eve notes—and she’s dressed for uncertain weather, with a chic unbuttoned jacket layered over a pretty blouse.

“I always like to change out of the clothes I almost got killed in, but maybe that’s just me,” Eve says to Bond, who snorts. 

Séverine is dressed for an uncertain fate as well as uncertain weather. But Eve is sure that the list isn’t Séverine’s only bargaining chip; she’ll be okay.

“Your carriage awaits,” Eve says, nodding at the helicopter. 

Séverine takes a deep breath. She glances at Bond, and back at the buildings behind her, and out to sea. Then she follows Eve into the helicopter, and into whatever future she can seize on distant shores.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is always welcome <3 
> 
> (Also, if you'd like to read another alternate ending for the scene on Silva's island, check out HCN's [At the Threshold](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/007FestFancreations/works/7443277), which also saves Patrice!)


End file.
